Mayhem In New Orleans

Also on Villere, a 59-year-old woman who didn't want to publicly give her name said she was inside her home, about to go outside to see the parade, when she heard shots ring out. She said that from her porch she saw hundreds of people scattering, running. "It's sad that people can't gather together and celebrate," she said. "You don't just go into a crowd and fire into a group of innocent people."

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Well, ma'am, in fact, that is exactly one of the things that you do, if you happen to be an American in the year of Our Lord 2013, and you happen to have a gun, because an insane fascination with its firearms is only one of the major symptoms of the fact that our country has lost its mind.

One of the under-examined arguments in the current debate over our insane fascination with our firearms is an exploration of the possibility that the very nature of the country makes it a dangerous place for firearms to be quite so freely bought and sold and available. Canada has as many guns, and far fewer gun deaths. We all agree that, say, Somalia is a bad place for there to be quite so many guns because of the general breakdown of social and cultural order. Maybe we should examine our conscience that way. Maybe, the video games and the gun show loophole and universal background checks and mental hygiene are all a sideshow. Maybe the real question we should be asking ourselves is simply whether or not the nature of the country itself makes the proliferation of firearms unhealthy here, in this place, at this time. We keep telling ourselves we are a good people, but we also are an armed people. We keep telling ourselves we are a good people, but we are an armed people and we are killing and wounding ourselves at an alarming rate. We keep telling ourselves we are a good people, but we are an armed people, and we are killing and wounding ourselves at an alarming rate, and we keep looking outside ourselves for answers, because we are a good people and this should not be happening to us the way that it is. Maybe we are not a good people. Maybe we are a scared and angry people. Maybe we are not a good people. Maybe we are a scared and angry people and we have armed ourselves because we are scared and angry. Maybe we are a scared and angry people and we have armed ourselves and now we are shooting each other because we are scared and angry and we can get our hands on some guns.

A Mother's Day Parade?

Maybe we are not a good people. Maybe we should think on that for a while.